Week 10: Graphics the GPU

Provide a summary of the findings in 10 games.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/game-performance-bottleneck,2737.html

Intellectual Property: GNU GPL Vs CCL

GNU General Public License

The GNU General Public License (GNU GPL or simply GPL) is the most widely used license for free software, originally written by Richard Stallman for the GNU project. The GPL is the first copyleft license for general use, which means that derived works can only be distributed under the same license terms. Under this philosophy, the GPL grants the recipients of a computer program the rights of the free software definition and uses copyleft to ensure the freedoms are preserved, even when the work is changed or added to. This is in distinction to permissive free software licenses, of which the BSD licenses are the standard examples. The text of the GPL is not itself under the GPL. The license's copyright disallows modification of the license. Copying and distributing the license is allowed since the GPL requires recipients get "a copy of this License along with the Program".[5] According to the GPL FAQ, anyone can make a new license using a modified version of the GPL as long as he or she uses a different name for the license, doesn't mention "GNU", and removes the preamble, though the preamble can be used in a modified license if permission to use it is obtained from the Free Software Foundation (FSF).


Creative Commons License

Creative Commons licenses are several copyright licenses that allow the distribution of copyrighted works. The licenses differ by several combinations that condition the terms of distribution. They were initially released on December 16, 2002 by Creative Commons, a U.S. non-profit corporation founded in 2001. As of September, 2010, Creative Commons licenses have been "ported" to 53 different jurisdictions worldwide, with 8 others under development.

Attribution (by)Noncommercial (nc)No Derivative Works (nd)Share-alike (sa)Licensees may distribute derivative works only under a license identical to the license that governs the original work. (See also copyleft.)

	Licensees may copy, distribute, display and perform the work and make derivative works based on it only if they give the author or license holder the credits in the manner specified by these.
	Licensees may copy, distribute, display, and perform the work and make derivative works based on it only for noncommercial purposes.
	Licensees may copy, distribute, display and perform only verbatim copies of the work, not derivative works based on it.

The Atari 2600 VCS

Atari released its CPU based console called the VCS, later called the 2600, in 1977. Nine games were designed and released for the holiday season. It would quickly become by far the most popular console of its generation, due to the leap in technology between it and the other consoles around at the time. Once it became public knowledge that you could play more than just 'Pong', and programmers learnt how to push it's hardware further, it's popularity grew like crazy.
For the first year, the console was built in Sunnyvale in California, and heavy RF Shielding, aswell as all 6 switches being on the front, gave the first model the nickname 'heavy sixers'. After this, production moved to Hong Kong.

Story Character

Create an NPC for a non fiction medieval period game, and list a possible situation or location that would create an interesting situation.


A small boy, with hand carved arrows and a hand made bow, keen to join the hero on his journey. Captured by bandits in a deep part of the forest, hero spends a level or two getting him back. After that, NPC joins hero as back up, providing arrow fire during battles.

Design Techniques

Create a game using 'I Wandered lonely as a cloud'.

I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud
I wandered lonely as a cloud That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd, A host of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees, Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
Continuous as the stars that shine and twinkle on the Milky Way,
They stretched in never-ending line along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance, tossing their heads in sprightly dance.
The waves beside them danced;
but they Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay, in such a jocund company:
I gazed - and gazed - but little thought what wealth the show to me had brought:
For oft, when on my couch I lie In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

The purpose of the game i have come up with is to get the golden daffodil, an extra large, glowing golden daffodil, standing in the middle of a huge bed of shining daffodils. You start on the poet's couch, which hangs from the lonely cloud, above the lake. If you fall off the couch into the lake, you have to start again. You play the part of the poet, who has to gather thoughts to temporarily inflate the cloud enough to lift you up to a starry area. You now have a limited time to gather stars, which are sucked into the cloud. When you sink down again, the stars fuel the cloud and cause it to float towards the flowers. The process then starts again, but at increased difficulty.
When you reach the daffodils, they dance, and the golden daffodil is picked up, sending the cloud and couch flying off into the stars.

Kismet

In my game, I plan to use Kismet to add text to my game, as their is a conversation between the player and another character, and the player thinks out loud at various points. I also plan to have a stone wall that vanishes, and doors that open. I'm not sure yet whether I can get them to work, but these are my plans.

Design Document.

1. Why do you think there is so much variation in the structure of each design document?

A design document is very specific to the game it's about and the designer, so there is no right way to write one. Each Design document has been made the way it has for a reason.

2. How much technical information is contained within the design documents? Would a programmer be able to pick up any of these design documents and create the gameplay based on only the information presented within the design document?

I think a programmer could make the level designed in Technomancy, as there are pictures of the map, as well as decriptions of the overworld. Captain claw had a much smaller description of the worlds, so whiole a programmer could make it, it is unlikely that it would match up with the picture in the designers head. It has very good descriptions of the fighting though, so the characters and combat would be easy to do just using the design document. In comparison, Technomancy has very little description of characters or combat points, merely listing them and moving on. The most descriptive it gets on characters is that the Shadow warrior is female.

3. Discuss a few good points about these example documents, and then identify a few areas which you would improve in your own design document. For example, you may want to reduce some of the long paragraphs of text in some documents and present that same information as a bullet list to make the information more accessible.

My design document will make good use of bullet points, and try and use short paragraphs, for easy reading.
I'm not sure I'll be able to go into as much detail as these until I've finished the game, as if I plan something to the last detail beforehand, and it ends up not quite working, or looking different, it will drive me crazy. Nobody will need to make my game until I've finished the first version anyway, so in future I plan to make a design document after making the game, to help anyone interested in making it replicate it, but anything I make or design is likely to change part way through, or have bits I didn't plan in advance, as I tend to start off with the rough outline of something and see where it ends up, fleshing it out and filling it in in whatever way makes sense.

Colossal Cave Adventure

This week I played Colossal cave adventure, a text based game, and the first ever adventure game. I have been delayed in posting this, due to CCA not running on my Mac, making it difficult to experience.



Q1. Which elements of the game did you find enjoyable?

I really liked the plot, and the adventure element, combined with random and funny moments and responses. For example, if you type 'blast', it merely responds 'blasting requires Dynamite' which is unavailable in the game, at least as far as I got.





Q2. Which elements of the game did you not find enjoyable?

Occasionally you get in a bit of a loop, and have no clear way of progressing. This get get a little annoying.


Q3. For those elements of the game which you did not enjoy, why do you think the
game has been designed in this way.

It forced you to think about what to do, and use what you'd collected or learned already
in order to proceed.


Q4. At the time this game was originally released why do you think it was so popular?

Nothing like it had ever been made before, and it allowed you to explore a whole new world, collecting items, use logic, and be the hero of what was essentially an adventure novel.


Q5. How does the game attempt to compensate for the lack of graphics?

It describes the scenes rather well, letting you picture all the landscapes in your head. This helps show the ispiration from writers such as Tolkein in the creation of the game, as he was famed for his wonderfully detailed, moving descriptions of middle-earth.


Q6. In terms of the ‘player experience’, does Colossal Cave Adventure offer any
advantages over modern adventure games? Describe your views on this.


Quite a lot of games these days try to fill the screen with as much as they can, and it can be distracting, or difficult to focus on a certain part of it. This game is delightfully simple, and leaves much more up to the imagination.